Oct 8 - 11 Oil pam estates in Melaka, Negeri Sembilan and Johore

I spent a few days as part of a team doing biodiversity assessments in oil palm estates last week. Tiring and quite monotonous birdwise for the most part, but it's good to be in the field with some great colleagues, and to be contributing to something worthwhile.

At night these three are common denizens of the oil palm estates:



Common Palm Civet




Spotted Wood Owl



and Large-tailed Nightjar

Any pocket of different habitat immediately increased the variety of species we recorded.



This Aristocypha fenestrella was one of several damselflies seen along a forested stream.



Vestalis amethystina is another attractive shady stream inhabitant.



This Common Imperial butterfly spent a long time feeding on a dead millipede.




There were a number of these stunning moths at the same site. When they flew they looking like flying flames.



John about to get a much closer look at a damselfly!



A late evening dragonfly foray inspires John to rediscover his Welsh heritage - reading from Albert Orr's "Dragonflies of Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore".



On a morning after a night of heavy rain we experienced a small "fall' of passerine migrants, including Eastern Crowned Wablers, several Yellow-rumped Flycatchers and Asian paradise Flycatchers (shown here), and, best of all, a Brown-chested Jungle Flycatcher - a bird I haven't seen for about 20 years!



The team after a hard day in the field!



On our last night we managed to see two or three Leopard Cats - a personal triumph as I had failed to see one up to this point!